Skyview HDX WiFi Dongle and ForeFlight

[Alto]

My Dynon connection to my iPad running Foreflight has never been satisfactory. After a year of promising it will be fixed it's worse than ever. On climb out of every flight the Foreflight announces its connection is lost.

Does anyone on the forum agree with me that Dynon owes us a refund for falsely advertising this capability and selling an accessory that just doesn't work.

 

[MikeD]

Not an answer to your question but a suggestion that might reduce the occurrences of disconnects. I was surprised to read this thread which quotes Dynon stating that Skyview only supports 1 connection. If two devices are connected then you *will* experience intermittent disconnects.

Like me, most of us have an EFB application on our phones and tablet. If I bring both my iPhone and iPad into the cockpit, they will both automatically establish connections to Skyview *and* experience intermittent disconnects. I now only fly with one device powered on and get improved, but not perfect, reliability.

 

[GrinchF16]

My connection is flawless. Panel mounted iPad, zero disconnects… But, I have a Classic not HDX. May be a difference there.

 

[kurtfly]

I can tell my experiences as I was an original classic Skyview that recently upgraded to the HDX. My experience was the classic was more robust regarding WiFi connectivity. I rarely, had a WiFi disconnect with a IFD 540 and an IPAD with Foreflight connected. I only had numerous WiFi disconnects when I added another IPAD w/ Foreflight (2 IPADs) on the classic. Once I upgraded to HDX I began to get WiFi disconnects occasionally with the IFD and 1 IPAD. These are generally short duration and auto recover. Occasionally I must disable WiFi in Skyview and re-enable to fix. When I have IFD and 2 IPADs it will start WiFi disconnects within minutes. All have auto recover to date. I usually ask the copilot to keep their IPAD off.

I can add one more bit if information that I have reported elsewhere in this forum regarding Foreflight. I will always experience no textual METARS after approximately 1 hour of flight time or immediately if I took off without first having an update to Foreflight via internet. On a cross country flight I must look up weather via Skyview display. Foreflight is useless, all airports show ”no data available “. I have experienced this also with a Garmin system also. So, it is not isolated to a Dynon system. I know the data is somewhere inside Foreflight because I see the green/blue/red dots at weather reporting airports. Just tap the airport and it says “no data available “. This problem has been reported to Boeing / Foreflight last April. Still has not been fixed, but they say it is being “worked”.

Kurt

 

[Alto]

My Dynon connection to my iPad running Foreflight has never been satisfactory. After a year of promising it will be fixed it's worse than ever. On climb out of every flight the Foreflight announces its connection is lost.

Does anyone on the forum agree with me that Dynon owes us a refund for falsely advertising this capability and selling an accessory that just doesn't work.

Thanks for the replies. I fly with Foreflight backing up a Garmin panel and don’t have problems with it. Switched over from Garmin Pilot when I got a gyroplane as a second aircraft with a Dynon HDX system. Of course Garmin Pilot doesn’t play with Dynon. I tried FlyQ as an alternative. I didn’t have issues with the iPad disconnecting in either situation with FlyQ. However, I mount the iPad on the copilot side of the panel, and the lcd screen on the iPad pro isn’t very readable when viewing from an oblique angle. The FlyQ lacked the ability to change colors to enhance day light use in the cockpit. That brings us to Floeflight. No problem with the Garmin Bluetooth connection. However, Dynon has no reason to claim they are able to connect to it. It’s just false advertising. I’ve got the dongle mounted just fractions of an inch from the iPad I’ve been trying for 2 years.. I don’t connect to the Dynon WiFi with anything else. I’ve stripped all the privacy protections from the iPad’s Dynon WiFi connection and Configured the Dynon WiFi connection to “No” so as not to display WiFi on the iPad because it has a cellular modem. I fly the gyro mostly less than 500 feet. It keeps both hands busy. Not much opportunity to disconnect or restart software in the air.

 

[Karl Gosling]

My Dynon connection to my iPad running Foreflight has never been satisfactory. After a year of promising it will be fixed it's worse than ever. On climb out of every flight the Foreflight announces its connection is lost.

Does anyone on the forum agree with me that Dynon owes us a refund for falsely advertising this capability and selling an accessory that just doesn't work.

I don't know about a refund but fixing the problem would be nice, it really can't be that hard... WiFi isn't new! lol
I get a connection maybe one in every ten attempts and then loses it almost immediately, I've given up using it.

 

[Alto]

I wonder if the issue might be as simple as a better wifi dongle. Dynon insists on selling you their wifi usb device. Has anyone tried to make it work with any other after market usb wifi adapter?

 

[ve0kog]

I wonder if the issue might be as simple as a better wifi dongle. Dynon insists on selling you their wifi usb device. Has anyone tried to make it work with any other after market usb wifi adapter?

no, but im thinking about connecting Startux as the primary ADSB IN source for FF.

 

[Karl Gosling]

I wonder if the issue might be as simple as a better wifi dongle. Dynon insists on selling you their wifi usb device. Has anyone tried to make it work with any other after market usb wifi adapter?

I thought this but it isn't the WiFi that drops out, my phone has a solid connection, it's Skyview that stops communicating with (in my case) SkyDemon showing the message "Waiting for Skyview" which makes this problem even more frustrating as just replacing the WiFi dongle would be quick, easy and cheap!
Sadly it looks like it's Dynon that need to fix their software that communicates with our other devices/software (SD, FF, EasyVFR, etc.)

If I'm lucky and keep trying I can sometimes get a connection long enough to just about upload a flight plan, but using the Dynon GPS rather than the phones inbuilt module for logging my flight data etc. is impossible.

 

[RVDan]

I had a drop out problem until I used a usb extender and placed the dongles where they could see under the panel to the cabin. Then no disconnects and I have 2 Ipads connected every flight (my copilot has one).

 

[ve0kog]

I had a drop out problem until I used a usb extender and placed the dongles where they could see under the panel to the cabin. Then no disconnects and I have 2 Ipads connected every flight (my copilot has one).

interesting. this was my question in another thread. there is so much metal surrounding the dongle in the back that a weak wifi signal seem like a potential issue. There is all sorts of cabling, connectors, aluminium panel face plate, the firewall etc on all sides but the bottom. and the RF signal does not necessarily take the path of least resistance to find the receiver..

 

[Alto]

I had a drop out problem until I used a usb extender and placed the dongles where they could see under the panel to the cabin. Then no disconnects and I have 2 Ipads connected every flight (my copilot has one).

That’s some good mojo you have Dan. I use an extender too the dongle is 1/8th inch from the iPad, the signal strength displayed on the iPad is the full 4 lines.

But, here is another thought. Maybe interference is coming from outside my Gyro, as the iPad sees wifi signals from the ground?

 

[Raymo]

I wonder if the issue might be as simple as a better wifi dongle. Dynon insists on selling you their wifi usb device. Has anyone tried to make it work with any other after market usb wifi adapter?

Yes, many have used non-Dynon WiFi dongles with success. Also, Dynon does not insist you purchase theirs. I'm sure they like it if you do. Compare this functionality to Garmin's at >$1000 for the same functionality.

 

[Raymo]

My Dynon connection to my iPad running Foreflight has never been satisfactory. After a year of promising it will be fixed it's worse than ever. On climb out of every flight the Foreflight announces its connection is lost.

Does anyone on the forum agree with me that Dynon owes us a refund for falsely advertising this capability and selling an accessory that just doesn't work.

Mine works fine 99% of the time. There are occasions I have to restart FF to get the connection to be seen so I can transfer my flight plan. I blame that on FF, not Dynon.

Are you sure it is not a problem with your phone or iPad? Any BT devices in use that may be interfering? (both use 2.4 GHz)

 

[Alto]

Mine works fine 99% of the time. There are occasions I have to restart FF to get the connection to be seen so I can transfer my flight plan. I blame that on FF, not Dynon.

Are you sure it is not a problem with your phone or iPad? Any BT devices in use that may be interfering? (both use 2.4 GHz)

I do use a BT/3.5 mm phone jack to play mp3s via my intercom. I could experiment turning it off.

 

[Alto]

Mine works fine 99% of the time. There are occasions I have to restart FF to get the connection to be seen so I can transfer my flight plan. I blame that on FF, not Dynon.

Are you sure it is not a problem with your phone or iPad? Any BT devices in use that may be interfering? (both use 2.4 GHz)

Yes, many have used non-Dynon WiFi dongles with success. Also, Dynon does not insist you purchase theirs. I'm sure they like it if you do. Compare this functionality to Garmin's at >$1000 for the same functionality.

Any tips on which ones may work, some are compatible with different operating systems and drivers.

 

[Karl Gosling]

My issue is not WiFi drop off, that stays rock solid at maximum strength (as you would expect with the two devices barely 12" apart) it's the communication from Skyview.
BT devices and even other WiFi devices are absolutely not problem, it's 2024 and the number of devices found in close proximity in your average office, school, pub, restaurant and even our homes is plentiful and they all work just fine.... this is a Dynon issue (Skydemon, FF, Easy VFR, etc all suffer so it isn't on that end).

 

[Alto]

My issue is not WiFi drop off, that stays rock solid at maximum strength (as you would expect with the two devices barely 12" apart) it's the communication from Skyview.
BT devices and even other WiFi devices are absolutely not problem, it's 2024 and the number of devices found in close proximity in your average office, school, pub, restaurant and even our homes is plentiful and they all work just fine.... this is a Dynon issue (Skydemon, FF, Easy VFR, etc all suffer so it isn't on that end).

That’s a good point.

 

[ve0kog]

i don't really understand the alert from FF "Skyview has disconnected" while foreflight continues to happily show traffic, and the IPAD WIFI still shows as connected. Obviously FF thinks that something isn't right with the connection and perhaps it recovers very quickly, but does not bother to inform the user that the "Skyview has now re-connected". My FF did exactly the same thing with a Stratux receiver. This is somewhat annoying and hard to troubleshoot. Every time it happens I must verify that FF is working ok (it has a small ADSB status indicator in the top left corner). Hope we can get to the bottom of this. Foreflight does not have a user/support forum I guess?